unclutter | Jan. 2nd, 2011

Jan. 2nd, 2011

Hello, my name is Saira, and I'm a hoarder.

I never used to think of myself as a hoarder, because my family moved every one to two years. The longest we stayed in one place was four years, and that was kind of mindblowing for everyone. And of course, with every move, the kids were allowed two boxes for clothes and two boxes for toys and books and other sundries. Now that I'm all grown and not living in a dorm anymore, boy howdy do I collect all kinds of crap. My parents are hoarders too -- it just wasn't obvious until they retired and stopped moving around so much. Without being limited by how much they could afford to move they just collect and collect and the piles of stuff everywhere are scary.

I'm going to try to follow the one-in one-out principle, and also get rid of one additional item each day. I'm not, however, going to count the spouse's belongings in either the "in" or the "out" column.

I've also got an enormous stash of fiber and yarn that I'd like to either work through or give away. I'm going to try to stick to no net increase in stash, so no buying new yarn until I either knit or give away a ball of yarn, and no new fiber until I completely spin & ply an equivalent quantity of stash fiber. I tried this last year, and it kind of worked. The obvious flaw is that the total amount of yarn keeps increasing as I spin fiber into yarn.

So far for the year:

( Read more... )

Total so far this year:
In: 11
Out: 7
Net: +4

Not doing so great, but I plan to keep on keeping on.

haruka

So far today we gave away:

A full set of dishes (50 pieces)
A toaster oven
Over 30 videotapes

And there are between 100-150 books in the car waiting to go to the second-hand store.

It's amazing how, even with all the stuff we've been able to unload lately, that my house still looks like a disaster area.

waldo

Hi there. I'm Waldo. I've been in my current apartment for 8 years and I realized that there are boxes in my house that I haven't opened *since I moved in*. Yeah...

1-in-1-out won't do beans for me. I really need to be 1-in-10-out at least, to make a hole in my 'stuff'. I have a tendency to go, "but that's perfectly usable" and hang onto things I don't actually need. I don't think I've reached hoarding levels - I'm not keeping things like toilet paper rolls or the cups from pudding snacks or anything, but there's other stuff that builds up like craft supplies for that thing I was going to make six years ago and never got to.

Today I cleared out the boxes and accumulated piles in front of the book cases in the living room. I have two bags of trash that have gone out and two more ready to go and two bags of donations just from that. I also went through the piles of DVDs that needed to be sorted and refiled and found about three or four dozen disks of stuff that I had recorded off t.v., but have since bought the pro-disks for and trashed the recorded ones.

One of my issues I have is that I live on the 4th floor of a walk-up apartment building and making trips down to the trash, especially in the winter, is hell on my asthma. I need to really, really dedicate myself to leaving out the back door any time I'm leaving with a free hand to grab a bag of trash.

chomiji

I see some good ideas here ... anyone have some suggestions for dealing with emotionally charged items such as keepsakes?

I have a horrible time deciding what to do with such items. It seems horrible to just throw them away.

Current Mood: frustrated

beachlass

chomiji posted about throwing away sentimental items. I really struggle with that as well, and when I managed to throw away a childhood item last year, I reflected on it, what it meant to me, how it felt. So I'm reposting that reflection below.

When I was a very little girl, I had a pink gingham dress that I loved. I loved it so much that when I outgrew it that my mum turned it into a pillow. I couldn't say gingham, and somehow it became known as my prinkle dress and then prinkle pillow. I slept with it every night, wherever we went.

I've been cleaning out stuff from the house; and making a particular effort with a closet in my bedroom, that is largely useless for clothes, because it's spilling out with other things. And making enough progress that this past week, I'd considered a few times some of the things I knew were in there. Thought about the threadbare, stained, lumpen prinkle pillow.

I stood in my bedroom this morning, holding it. One of the pieces of advice for letting go of things is to take photos if they have a sentimental value. But... what would I do with a picture of a bedraggled pillow? I thought about why it was important. It reminds me of my mother; who I love, and is still alive and well. If I want to connect with her, surely picking up the phone is better than holding on to a pillow. And then I remembered the times as a child when I would cry and cry helplessly into the pillow; feeling friendless and miserable. Hardly feelings I want to hold onto.

And then I thought: when I feel like that now, I can call my friends. I'm not alone. I don't need this pillow, because I have far, far better support networks than a worn out child's dress stuffed with polyester.

And with gratitude, put it in the garbage bag, and out to the curb.

peaceful_sands

Hi and Happy New Year!

I'm peaceful_sands in these parts and I'm hoping this comm is going to help me discipline myself into clearing out my clutter. I've lived in the same place for the last . . . hmmm I think it's 16 years and if I move it will be a drastic move and so I will be able to take very little with me, but in all likelihood I'll be staying here for the next few years at least.

I've wanted to declutter for a while and I make half-hearted attempts from time to time - I love the minimalism but just seem to accumulate 'stuff' and I always feel bad about getting rid of things that aren't worn out and as I tend to be quite careful it takes me a long time to do that.

( How I'm going to do this (optimistically) and where I'm at today )

Current Mood: optimistic

angelbabe_cj

Hi, I'm angelbabe_cj and I'm definitely in need of this project! I'm currently living with my parents, but I spent 5 years living elsewhere thanks to Uni, a year out, and a master's degree. I managed to accumulate quite a bit of stuff to go with the stuff that was already here. I made a start on uncluttering last year, mostly in great swathes, this year I'll be doing some of that later on, plus the project.

Yesterday: Got rid of two items of clothing not suitable for charity shop, plus put two more on the pile to take to the charity shop.

Total: Minus 4

Today: Two items (not technically mine) sent for church draw. Plus I'm going to get the ancient water bottle down from the top shelf where it's accumulated too much dust to be cleanable and throw that out.

ETA: Plus an eggcup I managed to break whilst getting bottle down. This 'accidentally broken stuff' category will probably be a recurring theme.

Total: Minus 34 (or 1 2 depending on how you look at it)

Nothing in so far, although I have some books on order which will appear soon.

Year's Running total: Minus 78 (or 56)

holyschist

Hi, I'm a packrat with too many hobbies...and I might be moving temporarily for work soon and am hence trying to clean/organize/sort through/declutter ALL the things ASAP so a) I will be able to easily and efficiently pack for a year in another town, b) leave my partner in a tidy, organized apartment not covered with my stuff. It is sort of daunting, although I am making pretty good headway (I am afraid I may not be able to work fast enough, though).

My biggest long-term problems are books (which I am getting better about--I got rid of 20 or so books the other day for store credit which will only buy 2 books, and have generally become much pickier about buying books--there is empty space on some of our bookshelves now!) and craft supplies, so once I finish the marathon my goal for this year will be to destash--primarily by sewing a lot, because the fabric takes up more net space than anything but books.

I'm not really aiming for minimalism, but I would like to craft more with what I have, buy fewer supplies, and I would like to have only stuff I love and use regularly, and not too much stuff for our living space.

I'm pretty good at getting rid of stuff, except for all kinds of weird sticking points. I absolutely hate throwing things away--recycling or donating is fine--but then I run into stuff like the entire office box of half-used notebooks I accumulated through college and grad school. Should I just toss most of them and start over, now that I no longer buy four pristine notebooks a semester and can probably do fine with three total notebooks? What do y'all think?

ETA: I actually ripped out the used pages a while back, so what I have is a giant stack of blank half-notebooks, which could probably be more productively replaced by three new notebooks...I guess I'd better suck it up and recycle the collection. Erk. Thanks for the moral support!

miss_s_b

Today I brought home 5 Wii games and a DVD. HOWEVER. I do have a big bag of clothes to take to the charity shop, and a load of recycling to put out...

Current Mood: ashamed
Current Location: sofa
Current Music: My boys playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii